


you are my sweetest downfall

by mysterytwin



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post s2 finale, let them be happy, starco, there's hugging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 01:46:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11117307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterytwin/pseuds/mysterytwin
Summary: There are some people you need more than you know, and for Marco Diaz, that person is Star Butterfly.





	you are my sweetest downfall

It hits him in the middle of the night.

The thought comes along, almost buried in the piles of other ideas, other questions he had, but it’s there. It’s there; a simple solution that could help him get some answers — closure. And it’s not like he’s getting much sleep anyway (heck, he’s too stunned by what happened to even consider it), so he does it.

_(dear mom and dad, I’ll be home soon. don’t worry about me, I’ll be safe. love you, guys - Marco)_

Marco grabs his dimensional scissors and opens up a portal to Mewni.

_(take me to wherever she is.)_

And he steps inside.

He’s standing in the middle of a large room with stars decorating a popcorn ceiling, a bed that could fit at least three people, a rather exquisite couch, and his eyes are searching all over the room for — her.

And there she is.

Star Butterfly, princess of Mewni, heir to the throne, and his best friend.

He can’t move.

She gasps when she sees him, jumping up from her position on the bed. Her eyes are wide, but Marco can’t seem to make out what she’s thinking. Which is odd, because she’s usually expressive with her feels and he can read her like a book — but things have changed. Something is different between them now, and he doesn’t like it. He misses the way things used to be.

(it used to be just him and her against the world, fighting monsters and eating nachos. it used to be simple.)

But maybe he should’ve known by now that nothing is simple when it comes to Star. She’s a rebel princess, a shooting star, and unpredictable at best. But she’s still his best friend.

Right?

“Star,” he breathes out. His arms lay limp at his side, one hand clutching his scissors. He wants to run towards her, hug her, but his feet don’t seem to be working.

He wants her to say something. _Anything_. Make it seem like it’s all just a dream, that she’s coming back home with him.

(but really, where is her home? Mewni or Earth?)

Instead, her eyebrows narrow and lips press into a firm line, and she opens her mouth to speak, her voice sounding like the queen she’s destined to be.

“You need to leave.”

“What?” Marco asks, feeling too confused to even move. “What are you saying? Star, I just got here—”

“You need to leave right now,” the princess orders. She takes the scissors from his hand quickly, and the sound of a portal opening up behind him is a loud and clear message: she doesn’t want him here. “You shouldn’t be here, the lockdown could happen at any minute—”

But he needs answers. He needs _her_.

“No.” He grabs her wrist to make her face him. “I’m not leaving until you tell me why you left. Was it—” He finds himself choking on his own words. “Was it _me_?”

Star’s face softens, her eyes becoming sad. “Oh, Marco,” she says softly, almost a whisper. “I — no, of course not. This — this doesn’t involve you. Why I left, my mom, it’s an emergency, and—”

“Then, why? Why did you leave, Star?” he asks. “Star, you’re my best friend. Nothing could and will ever change that. You and I, we’ve been through so much together. And I — I can’t lose you. Not now. Not when I won’t have school to distract me from being so bored, not when you just—”

He shuts his eyes.

“Not when you just told me you liked me.”

Star doesn’t meet his gaze, looking everywhere else, but him. “Marco, please, I swear, I’ll try to tell you once it’s all over—”

“ _Try_? Star, you have to tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help you—”

“No!” she shrieks. “I can’t lose you! I can’t let you risk your life because of me!” Her voice wavers, just slightly. “I can’t lose you, Marco. That’s why I left. Because I won’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you or anyone else. This is none of your concern, Marco—”

“ _None of my concern?_ Star, you’re my best friend! And I care about you! And I’ll do anything to help you, to protect you—”

“Marco, please,” she whispers. “Please — just leave. Go back to Earth, to your parents. Go back to your girlfriend. You need to leave before Mom puts Mewni on lockdown. And — and I don’t need you anymore.”

“But I do!”

Star is silent, but her eyes say too much; it’s a little overwhelming. She remains frozen, unmoving as she stares at him.

“Star,” he says, his voice almost a quiet whisper. “Star, I need you. And I don’t care about the lockdown or whatever — I just want you to tell me why you left. If I leave, I’ll be going back to a world without you in it. I’ll be back to being a safe kid. And I don’t want that anymore — that’s not _me_ anymore. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry if I made you feel bad; I would never make you feel like that on purpose. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t see what you felt for me; I’m sorry that I was too oblivious to notice. I’m sorry I was too focused on myself to think about what you must be feeling, and I just want you to know that I — I care about you too much to let you go. I can’t lose you, Star. You mean a lot to me. You’re my best friend.”

Star wraps her arms around his neck without another word. Marco lets her warmth engulf him, and it’s just like old times. But something is different, something has changed between them, but he takes it all anyway. Who knows when he’ll be able to hug her again?

“I missed you,” she murmurs into his ear. “Ans I know it’s only been, like, an hour, since I left, but I really, really missed you, Marco. I missed this. I miss hanging out with you. I miss the way things used to be. I missed my best friend.”

“Then tell me what’s wrong,” he says, biting his lip once she lets go. “Star, I can help you.”

She takes a deep breath. “Toffee’s back.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“ _What_?” he says. No. It couldn’t possibly be. He can’t be. Marco was there — that explosion should’ve killed him. Right? He can’t be back. “No, he can’t be, no—”

As his words tumble away, the ground shakes beneath his feet, causing him to lose his balance. Star, on the other hand, remains upright. But she remains still. Too still.

“Oh no,” she mutters. “No, no, no, no.” Star frantically takes the scissors from his hands, cutting a portal open to Echo Creek, but instead of the colorful whirl she’s used to seeing — it’s just black. She tries to press a hand inside, but it’s like a solid wall. There’s no getting in or _out_ of Mewni.

She turns to Marco. “Marco! Look what you did! You should’ve left when I asked you to, oh Mewni, this is all my fault, now you’re stuck here, and you’re going to get hurt — and — and—”

“Star.”

“I left for a reason, Marco! To protect you! To save you from this mess! You’re human; Mewmans are less vulnerable, and you’d be an easy target, I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt. Toffee could take you away again! You could get hurt, I can’t let that happen, I can’t lose you—”

“Star,” he says softly, taking her hands. Her eyes are wild and frantic while they’re locked on his. They burn bright against his dark ones. “Star, I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”

She buries her head against his chest. “I can’t lose you.”

And maybe he knows she means it more intimately — more _romantically_ that he does, but there’s still a pit in his stomach whenever he imagines living in a world without her. He can’t do it alone. He needs his best friend by his side.

And maybe she does, too.

“Star, I do care about you,” he whispers into her hair. “Maybe not that way you want me to, but I still care about you more than anything. You’re still my best friend, that much I’m sure of. But everything else…I promise to figure it out. I just need you to be with me if I ever do — when I do.”

“Okay,” she mumbles as she pulls herself away from him. Star wipes a stray tear from her cheek. “Okay. Just promise me that you won’t do anything stupid while you’re here. Don’t leave the castle. Toffee’s out there, and I can’t risk him taking you away from me again.”

He grins. “Promise. I’m your safe kid, after all.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you ready?”

“As long as you’re with me.”

 

* * *

 

 

Marco’s breathing quickens. There’s no way out. He can’t run, or hide. It’s over for him. Monsters swarm him at every corner, and Toffee stands amidst it all.

The monster shakes his head. “Still so disappointing,” he says. “But won’t be for long. Finish the boy.”

And so they come running towards him, and he places himself in his usual fighting stance, ready for one last fight. He sees Star at the corner of his eye and smiles. He hopes she knows that this is all for her.

And so he fights.

But the monsters are bigger, quicker, and stronger. They outnumber him in a matter of seconds, and hit him until he’s on the ground, ready for one final blow to take it all.

Then—

“ _No_.”

There’s a wave of pink magic that fills the air, and suddenly, a figure emerges above the dust. Purple wings and glowing heart cheeks, Star Butterfly directs her wand at Toffee, flying up above them all, and shuts her eyes. Another explosion and — and nothing.

Marco watches her fall.

Like a shooting star, she crashes and burns. Star, the princess of Mewni, is falling from the sky.

And so he runs.

He scrambles back onto his feet and runs and he shouts and tries to catch her before her body can hit the ground. He falls to his knees on impact — but it’s nothing compared to the pain she must be feeling.

“Star,” he says quickly. He checks her pulse, makes sure she’s still breathing — still alive. He lets out a sigh of relief when he feels her heartbeat against his fingers. “Star, wake up, please.”

Queen Moon and King River rush to his side immediately, taking her hands and pressing her close to them.

“Star, dear, please,” River cries out. “You are my daughter, my beautiful, beautiful shooting star, and I wouldn’t want to wish for anything more.”

“It should’ve been me,” Moon croaks out. “This isn’t her fight — it never was. She doesn’t deserve this. It should’ve been me.”

“Star, _please_ ,” he says desperately, clinging onto her like she’s his lifeline. She might as well be. “I need you. We all do.”

A cough, and her eyes flutter open. It’s still the soft blue he’s learned to miss and love. He hugs her tightly.

“You came back,” he says breathlessly.

Star manages to crack a smile. “I’ll always come back to you.”

He lets go of her and gives her off to her parents. They embrace her just as tightly as he did, whispering their love and their joy to her. Marco feels relieved.

River looks up to him and gives him a small smile. “Marco, my boy,” he says, and he’s pulling him towards the family hug, and feels arms surround him. He only returns it, basking in the warmth.

It’s over.

It’s finally over.

 

* * *

 

 

Three nights later, Marco stands on the balcony of the room that was given to him, standing under the starlight. There’s still a lot to fix, but it’s better than nothing.

“Mewni’s not on lockdown anymore,” Star says, sliding next to him. There are scars on her wrists and arms, but they’ll fade away with time. She doesn’t meet his gaze when she adds, “So you’re free to go.”

He looks at her. “What do you mean?”

She shrugs, only stares at the view in front of her. “You can go home now. You can go back to Echo Creek and back to your parents. They’re probably still worried sick, even after you called them. You…can go back to Jackie now.”

Marco takes her hand, which surprises her. “Star, I’ve already told you. I’m not leaving. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I can’t go back there — you changed me, Star. For the better. And I want to be somewhere with you by my side. Wherever that may be, I want to be with you.”

Star’s cheeks were pink. “I—” she tries to say, but she instead decides to do what she usually does when words fail her: she hugs him.

And of course, like tradition, like clockwork, like he pours his feelings into this small hug, he returns it.

“I asked Mom and Dad earlier, if I could go back to Earth,” she confesses, and he notices the way her hands grip at the edge of the balcony. He holds his breath, waiting for her to continue. “And they said I could, if I wanted to.”

“And…?”

She looks up at him, her eyes shining brighter than any of the stars above them. “I said I did. Is that okay?”

He hugs her again. “Of course it’s okay!” He hears her laugh — oh god, he missed her laugh — and she’s beaming. “You mean it? You’re really coming home with me?”

She nods, her smile not once fading away. “Definitely.”

They settle into comfortable silence as they watch the stars, both thinking of what’s yet to come. Marco is too excited to come back home, especially now that they don’t have much to worry about — but mostly because Star is going to be with him.

“Hey, Marco?”

“Yeah?”

She’s fumbling with her fingers. “Have you…um, have you thought about your — your feelings? For me? It’s totally fine, if you haven’t. And it’s okay, if you have, and decided that you don’t—”

“I haven’t given it much thought, actually,” he tells her, but heavens knows he’s lying — he stays up all night thinking about it. Thinking about her. And her soft smile and pretty eyes and cute laugh and the way his stomach flips when she looks at him, or the way his heart stops when he even thinks about losing her— Okay. That’s enough. “But is it okay if you wait a bit more? I…need more time.”

“Totally, totally, totally,” she says smoothly, running her fingers through her hair. She coughs. “I, uh, I’m going to get some sleep. We leave in the afternoon. See you in the morning?”

Marco nods, still a bit awkward. “Yeah, of course. See you.”

He watches her walk away. A part of him wants to tell her to stay, to tell her the truth — but what is there to tell? The truth, well, the truth is messy. Even if he does feel things when he’s around her, he’s not sure how to put that into words. He’s not sure if he’s there, yet. And this is different from what he feels with Jackie. Star and Jackie are two different people. So, yeah — messy.

“Hey, Star?”

She turns around almost instantly. She looks…hopeful. “Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re coming home with me.”

Smiling softly, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah. Me, too.”

And then she’s gone, leaving him alone to stare at the moons, but she’s all he thinks about. Maybe…maybe that’s a good thing.

Yeah. Maybe.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a year later when he pulls her in for a kiss, finally sure of his feelings (well, he’s been sure of it for months now, he just didn’t know how to tell her). Star smiles into it, and wraps her arms around his neck to bring him closer.

That night, Marco realizes that the answer to his question was right in front of him all along. Neither Earth or Mewni are her home.

He is.

And Star Butterfly, is finally home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu at superishs.tumblr.com!!


End file.
